Ann Coulter Attacks “Terror Widows”

A colleague I ran into at the Denver editorial cartoonists confab was surprised to learn that my phone wasn’t “ringing off the hook” after news of Ann Coulter’s attack on 9/11 widows. After all, right-wingers like Coulter piled on yours truly when I drew my own take on the 9/11 widow media phenomenon back in March of 2002.

Well, as the following e-mail–one of many I’ve received from readers lately–says: The media have short memories:

What’s your take on the press going after Ann Coulter for her comments on 9/11 widows? I had hoped, at least, that her time had passed and people would just ignore this book (which is what she richly deserves), but apparently it topped Amazon’s best sellers list today.
At least Hannity, et al, will have a tough time defending her with the claim that its just the “liberal media” going after her, since they all went after you for what amounts to the same thing — offending certain people. Then again, these guys do have short memories…

And the fall-out from “terror widows” was serious for me. Not only did I lose the Washington Post online website as a client, countless readers will always associate “Ted Rall” with “9/11 widows.” It’s not like I don’t do other stuff besides making fun of the widows and widowers who, like Lisa Beamer and Ted Olsen, exploited their spouse’s deaths to promote books, their fringe religious beliefs or wacky right-wing political agendas on national television–but you’d never know it to read some accounts.

And there were the death threats, of course. I wonder if Ann Coulter will get any of those?

Anyway, here’s what she had to say about the fuss on the Today show with Matt Lauer (among other things):

LAUER: On the 9-11 widows, an in particular a group that had been critical of the administration:

COULTER: “These self-obsessed women seem genuinely unaware that 9-11 was an attack on our nation and acted like as if the terrorist attack only happened to them. They believe the entire country was required to marinate in their exquisite personal agony. Apparently, denouncing bush was part of the closure process.”

“These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by griefparrazies. I have never seen people enjoying their husband’s death so much.”

Can’t say that I much disagree, although there’s certainly some hypocrisy–and a failure to cite original source material–in her failure to note that I got there first, paid a price for my comments because I dared to speak up six months after 9/11, not four years. Where was she when her right-wing fans were bashing me? Will her right-wing fans come down on her as hard as they did on me?

Je pense que non.

My take?

First, Coulter isn’t always wrong about everything. No one is. Second, she’s a lot meaner to the widows as people than my cartoon was, which explored the way specific media figures–Mariane Pearl, Theodore Olsen and Lisa Beamer–exploited their spouses’ deaths to make money or political hay. The vast majority of widows and widowers of 9/11, I have repeatedly said and written, deserve our sympathy and whatever help they need to rebuild their lives. My commentary was about the media phenomenon, such as the parade of 9/11 widows who went on stage during the 2004 GOP Necropublican Convention in New York to endorse Bush, then the specific individuals.

As for the right’s inability to demonstrate ideological consistency, well, I can’t say I’m surprised.

My lines are open. Which is fine.

P.S. A full analysis of the “Terror Widows” hubbub will be published in my upcoming book AMERICA GONE WILD.